Bike Maintenance: Home Bike Repair

What Have I Done?

A home mechanic spends the winter rebuilding his most abused bike, makes all the mistakes, and passes the lessons on to you.

brian fiske

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It's 9:37 p.m., and I'm finally squeezing in some bike repair time. Tonight, I should be done. Actually, I am done, but I can't stop. From a mechanical standpoint, my last project is pointless, but it shows what kind of home mechanic I have become: I'm coating the crimped end caps on my bike's shifter cables with liquid electrical tape. It might hold the end caps on longer, I rationalize, or maybe keep the cables from fraying - okay, it's dumb - the end caps are plenty. But this rubbery substance, which I discovered while repairing my doorbell wiring, is bright red. It looks cool, I think, as I smooth a drip. I'm glad my wife doesn't know this is why I'm down here.

I started this journey to tear apart my dirt-splattered, ghost-shifting, front-end-clunking Kona Stinky 5, clean and inspect every part, and rebuild it as a novel way to pass the long, cold nights of a Maine winter. It seemed perfect: It involved bikes, but not riding the trainer after the kids went to bed. Plus, I'm a capable home mechanic, though I hadn't done any of my own maintenance for the last few years - not enough time. But I'd work slowly, a little bit every few nights. I'd use my hands, savor the feeling of self-sufficiency, get in tune with my bike's idiosyncrasies, and maybe learn something new.

"Maybe you should paint the living room," my wife, Jen, lovingly suggested. "I hate this wallpaper."

But I was ready for her. "Let me do this," I said, "and I'll be able to fix the shifting on your mountain bike." It worked. All that beige would wait. So I descended into the basement, kicked aside some summer toys from a corner and set up The Shop: my toolbox, a folding table, workstand, manuals (Bicycling's Complete Guide to Bicycle Maintenance and Repair and Park Tool's Big Blue Book), a sawhorse with a clamped-on truing stand and a CD player - all lit by a single, naked 60-watt bulb.

That was three months ago. Along the way, I have uncovered the basic truths of wrenching. Success for every would-be mechanic depends on understanding these vital principles, taught only by immersing yourself, making hideous mistakes and digging yourself out of them, and weaving these lessons into your life as a cyclist and a human being. At least, that's what I'm telling my wife.

Lesson 1: Disassembly Is Too Easy

The Shop is a flurry of activity. After cleaning the drivetrain, always the prudent first step, I dig into the toolbox for the chain tool. I press a pin almost all the way out, wiggle the chain apart, and pull it free. Then, I take off the wheels.

I twist the cable covers out of the shifter pods with a screwdriver, grab a 5mm hex wrench and undo the shift cables from the derailleurs. I pop the housings from the frame, slide them off the cables, and pull the cables out--zzzip! Ah, so satisfying. The 5mm wrench also fits the rear derailleur; it comes off next. Ditto for the stem faceplate...handlebar hangs free...stem slides up, fork drops out--oops, brake still attached...brake lever removed next...

In less than an hour, using little more than a 5mm hex wrench, I have removed most of the parts from my bike. The deconstruction happens so easily that it becomes addictive, and I start removing things (chainring bolts!) just because I can.

It's a trap, I realize, when I pause and find myself standing in the middle of a jumble of dirty parts. I flash to a vision of my future self, pawing like a rabid dog through the mess in search of a missing stem-binder bolt. So I sort through everything while the knowledge of where all the pieces go is still fresh, and place them on the table in order. And I slow down. If my zeal starts to get the better of me again, I say to myself, I will simply remove one component at a time, clean it, inspect it and reinstall it before moving on.